Boston, MA

Tolookah , in Emerson College blames student protests for layoffs and declining enrollment, report says

I mean, if not enrolling is a form of protest, this makes sense.

Really though, they probably have record high profits, the president of the school is getting a big payout, and still, something about headwinds and coming out more focused on the other side, etc etc.

TheOneCurly , in This article says government subsidy for local news is always a bad idea. Do you agree?

I think this is a little doom and gloom for what is a very well intentioned project with an independent oversight board. Is the theory here that a paper receiving this funding would hesitate to expose corruption or be critical of local projects? To be honest, it's just not enough money. $100,000 a year being split among several local news orgs is a nice donation that pays part of someone's salary.

I wonder if corporate funding is the only way to get professional news or not.

That's definitely not what the author is implying. Direct corporate funding has all the same potential problems but with less oversight, more money, and with way more things to hide.

borebore OP Mod ,

Thank you, I felt the premise of the article was too black and white. I think independent journalism is critical to a functioning society as is government. Therefore, government needs to encourage independent journalism somehow. It's easy to find examples of state sponsored media that is obviously propaganda, but there has to be an middle ground. If public funded journalism was the ideal balancer, for example, maybe government could have a system of helping news outlets setup public funding infrastructure? I just hate the idea of saying "government bad".

MedicPigBabySaver , in Mayor Wu Declares Heat Emergency June 18 - 20, Opens BCYF Cooling Centers to all Residents
@MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world avatar

Gonna be a HOT day for the Duckboat parade! Congrats Celts! 🍀

gravitas_deficiency , in How would ranked choice voting work in Boston? Here's a look

Pretty simple. You rank your choices.

How is that hard?

tyler ,

Probably more of an implementation question than anything else. Though irv has a ton of other problems with it that make it non-ideal anyway.

gravitas_deficiency ,

Can we talk about RCV just one fucking time without someone mentioning “it has a ton of problems”, as if that makes it worse than FPTP? Because I honestly struggle to think of a single thing FPTP is better at than RCV.

Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good (or more accurately, meaningful incremental improvement).

borebore OP Mod ,

Agreed. It is harder to explain, but better in every other way. Not much of a down side in my book.

tyler ,

I expand on what I meant in the below comment if you want to read it.

tyler ,

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply it's worse than Plurality, as it's not. But if we're going to change voting systems then it's only ever going to happen once. If we fuck it up it ain't happening again, and we've already fucked up IRV/RCV in several locales in the US. We need to switch to something that has almost 0 problems, like 3-2-1 or STAR voting. You're going to have to explain it to the populace anyway. Better to get something that's almost perfect rather than something that people will hate because it's change and because it spoils elections. See this article on how IRV does that. https://electionscience.org/library/irv-degrades-to-plurality/

Notably, that Center for Election Science is the one that has shown that 3-2-1 or STAR are technically the best, but they actually advocate for Approval Voting, rather than those two. https://electionscience.org/approval-voting-faqs/

Funnily enough MIT says that IRV/RCV doesn't provide a lot of the benefits that supporters say it should. https://electionlab.mit.edu/articles/effect-ranked-choice-voting-maine

borebore OP Mod ,

I think what is hard to explain is how you determine who wins. Most people understand that in "old school" voting the one with the most votes wins. With ranked choice, how does it handle multiple people with very different rankings. Its easy to say "the one that most people preferred" or "instant runoff" but explaining how that is calculated is not easy. I am very much for ranked choice, and I was devastated when it lost the vote, but it's biggest hurdle is comprehension, and that is something for FUD'lers to prey on.

Openopenopenopen ,

While the concept of ranking choices is straightforward, the confusion and complexity often lies in understanding the counting process and how votes are redistributed in multiple rounds.

Zachariah , in Prosecutors recommend 30 days for woman who called in bomb threat to Children's Hospital; say her remorse is 'genuine and heartfelt,' but she still needs to pay a price
@Zachariah@lemmy.world avatar

Why are we punishing her? Can’t she be made to improve society in some way to make up for what she did? The harm she caused isn’t fixed with revenge.

Ashyr , (edited )

From where I stand, the major problem with the far right is that they're constantly being handled with kid gloves.

This was just bigotry and hatred on display and it escalates to this point because no one is ever putting a firm stop to it.

I don't think it's sufficient to allow someone who is willing to let children die in order to satiate their bigotry and hatred of queer people get off with some cleaning trash off the side of the road.

This very easily could have been manslaughter.

Honestly, 30 days is too low from where I'm standing.

While incarcerated, I'm fine with regular therapy and anything else to improve her as a person, but she shouldn't be walking free in 30 days. She may not call any more bomb threats, but she's hardly done making life hell for minorities.

Zachariah ,
@Zachariah@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, I agree more than 30 days to repay society is needed. Plus therapy is a great idea to try to prevent her from causing this kind of harm in the future.

I don’t think confinement itself will heal what she’s done nor get her on a better track in life.

Ashyr ,

It will prevent her from actively harming the rest of society. I'm fine with prison reform and I'm generally about restorative justice, let's make the best of a bad situation.

But she demonstrated a callous disregard for the health, safety, and lives of children. I do not trust her to be a part of polite society at this time.

Zachariah ,
@Zachariah@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, I’m all for protecting society by restricting her movement. If that’s being called “punishment” then I’m just disagreeing with the term being used. The point of the restriction shouldn’t be to cause her harm.

Ashyr ,

Ah, then there were agree. I'm never okay with justice that's looking for its pound of flesh.

There can and should be consequences for breaking the social contract, but only to make the best of a bad situation, not to arbitrarily worsen the situation of another.

Zachariah ,
@Zachariah@lemmy.world avatar

Exactly :)

hk_a , in Prosecutors recommend 30 days for woman who called in bomb threat to Children's Hospital; say her remorse is 'genuine and heartfelt,' but she still needs to pay a price

30 days punishment to cause a hospital to evacuate, with hundreds of sick kids, doesn't seem like enough.

borebore OP Mod ,

Yeah, was she remorseful because she was tricked or because she did something atrocious?

pageflight , in About "Crisis Pregnancy Centers"

Good that a .gov site explains it so clearly. I'm kind of surprised they can be that forthright without them being actually illegal.

demesisx , in Work begins on Boston's Boylston Street bike, bus lane project
@demesisx@infosec.pub avatar

Inb4 someone gaslights me about the traffic that I sit in every single day because the mayor decided to close down 2/3 of all lanes because some policy “wonk” decided that it’s better to punish people rather than do something to address the traffic problem.

Inb4 someone pipes in with, “well actually, statistics say that there’s less traffic than there was before, sweaty.”

Alexstarfire , in Warren proposes jail time for 'corporate greed' in health care

I'd hold my breath but I'm not suicidal.

waz , in The 15 Best Breweries In Boston 2024

AKA "The 15 Breweries in Boston".

gravitas_deficiency , in Boston cracks the top twenty for best cities in the world in new ranking

I just wish something could be done about the absolutely fucking eye-watering cost of housing here

AbidanYre ,

Best we can do is randomly shut down parts of the T for the next 6 months.

gravitas_deficiency ,

🫠

frosty ,
@frosty@pawb.social avatar

I hear it does that pretty well on its own. (I live 30 miles west, but I have plenty of friends who live in Somerville and Medford.)

TubularTittyFrog , in In Boston, omakase is having a moment

it's having a moment because it's extremely expensive and a big way to show off you have money. esp since tasting counter closed.

borebore OP Mod ,

My love of sushi and Omakase makes it hard for me to wholeheartedly agree with you, but I agree it is overpriced.

TubularTittyFrog ,

Omakase is paying for the presentation, not the food.

plenty of excellent cheap sushi places around.

borebore OP Mod ,

I agree that there are good and relatively cheap sushi places available. I may just be a snobby snoot but I think a good omakase is much more than fancy presentation. The ones that I have enjoyed had excellent quality fish paired with nuanced accompaniments like herb oils, fried onions, pickled vegetables, etc. Now these are not very expensive ingredients and they are used in extremely small portions, so there is still something to be said for it being a luxury markup. My gateway drug was Cafe Sushi in harvard square but they have unfortunately gone take-out only and it is not the same. Ironically they got rid of the fancy nature and I stopped going. I might just be a snooty snob.

TubularTittyFrog ,

it's ok. you're in the majority of people in boston. non snooty snobs are a minority.

MedicPigBabySaver ,
@MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world avatar

The "Omakase" in Cambridge on Mass. Ave was really good.

I highly recommend a place in Watertown: Super Fusion II. Really great fish and the people are super nice.

MedicPigBabySaver ,
@MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world avatar

TC closed? I went last year. Food was certainly good, but, I was very disappointed in the beer tasting. It should've been high quality, complex beers from Germany, Belgium, etc.

Nope. They had 2 from Nightshift... yuck!

MedicPigBabySaver , in Boston cracks the top twenty for best cities in the world in new ranking
@MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world avatar

If they could get the damn trains running as fast and easy as NYC... it would be wicked awesome. Considering that Boston has had subway a little longer than NYC and it's certainly smaller, I can't believe how much better NYC runs.

ScruffyDucky , in Beacon Hill cat cafe prepares to open, with security as tight as any dispensary's

Kitties must be protected at all cost :)

sheridan , in Beacon Hill cat cafe prepares to open, with security as tight as any dispensary's
@sheridan@lemmy.world avatar

Hopefully it goes more smoothly than Boston's previous cat cafe: https://youtu.be/wNsqEntHuV8

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